Practical tips for small biz owners

Scaling, leveraging, redesigning, and transforming your business model means looking at all aspects of it, even those pieces you think are sacrosanct, like your target audience.

I know you have spent vast amounts of time defining your perfect customer — and even more time building relationships with the customers you have.

So when you’re rethinking your business and getting ready to take it to a new level, one place to create instant leverage is to question your target audience and look for new possibilities.

Here are some “what if” questions to ponder, which will open your eyes to new ideas:

WHAT IF you could serve those people who also serve your customers? For instance, if you’re a small business consultant, what if you could serve the financial advisors, accountants, virtual assistants, website designers, and human resource companies who serve your same target audience?

WHAT IF you could serve a different target audience with the same assets you already have? Pretend for a moment that you didn’t want to offer your individual services anymore, but you didn’t want to throw away all that knowledge and experience either. Could you create a training program to teach people how to become what you are? Then they could serve your original target audience. Imagine you’re a team communication trainer, but you don’t want to offer your workshops to corporations anymore. Could you team other people how to either deliver your workshops, or team them how to run a team communication training company, essentially training the next generation and moving yourself into the “mastery” role.

WHAT IF you could narrow your target audience to one from a specific demographic? For instance, let’s say you are a graphic artist and you’ve been working with local companies to design their marketing materials. What if you focused solely on service firms, or solely on manufacturing firms? What if you focused only on businesses which make more than $1 million a year? Or focused only on women-owned businesses? Or focused solely on businesses with a strong social-responsibility stand?

WHAT IF you could ponder all the past customers you’ve had and choose the ones that you most enjoyed working with and/or the ones that were most profitable? What do they have in common?

You don’t have to make a major shift to a brand-new target audience (though that is one viable business reinvention strategy). You can re-define who you most enjoy working with and which clients are the most profitable — transforming your business to align more with your goals and values.

P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions…what are you thinking about your target audience these days?